bhakti(“devotion,” from Sanskrit bhaj, “to allotshare,” “to revere”love”), in Hinduism, a devotional movement emphasizing the mutual intense emotional attachment and love of a devotee toward his a personal god . Bhakti assumes a dualistic relationship between the devotee and god, in contrast to the monistic ideal of Advaita Vedānta philosophy. The way of and of the god for the devotee. According to the Bhagavadgita, a Hindu religious text, the path of bhakti(bhakti-marga) is can be contrasted with two other means of achieving salvation, such as religious approaches, the path of knowledge (jnana-marga), ) and the path of ritual and good works (karma-marga), and ascetic disciplines of the body; it is claimed by its supporters to be a superior way, as well as one open to all, irrespective of the sex, class, or caste status into which they were born.Though each ).

Bhakti arose in South India in the 7th to 10th centuries in poems that the Alvars and the Nayanars composed in Tamil to the gods Vishnu and Shiva. Drawing on earlier Tamil secular traditions of erotic poetry as well as royal traditions, bhakti poets applied to the god what would usually be said of the absent lover or of the king. Bhakti soon spread to North India, appearing most notably in the 10th-century Sanskrit text the Bhagavata-purana.

Each of the major divinities of Hinduism—Vishnu, ŚivaShiva, and Śakti—has its own devotional cults, the bhakti movement most characteristically developed around darshan Vishnu, principally in his two earthly incarnations as Rāma and Krishna.An emotional attraction toward a personal god began to be expressed in the early centuries of the Christian Era. It was an attitude furthered by the Indian epics—the Mahābhārata and the Rāmāyaṇa—and by the Purāṇas, encyclopaedic texts that recount legends of the various incarnations and appearances of the deities, their genealogies, and devotional practices accorded them. These practices included the recitation of God’s name, singing of hymns in praise of him, wearing his emblem, the various forms of the Goddess—have distinct devotional traditions. Vishnu-bhakti is based on Vishnu’s incarnations, particularly Krishna and Rama. Devotion to Shiva is associated with his frequent manifestations on earth—in which he can appear as anyone, even a tribal hunter, an untouchable (now also called a Dalit), or a Muslim. Devotion to the goddesses is more regional and local, expressed in temples and in festivals to Durga, Kali, Shitala (goddess of smallpox), Lakshmi (goddess of good fortune), and many others.

Many, but not all, bhakti movements were open to people of both genders and all castes. Devotional practices included reciting the name of the god or goddess, singing hymns in praise of the deity, wearing or carrying identifying emblems, and undertaking pilgrimages to sacred places associated with him, and serving him in a variety of ways.The devotional fervour of the 7th–10th-century hymnists of South India, the Āḻvārs and the Nāyaṉārs, also traveled north, until in time bhakti became an extremely widespread and popular form of Hindu religious life, inspiring a substantial quantity of superb religious poetry and artthe deity. Devotees also offered daily sacrifices—for some, animal sacrifices; for others, vegetarian sacrifices of fruit and flowers—in the home or temple. After the group ritual at the temple, the priest would distribute bits of the deity’s leftover food (called prasad, the word for “grace”). Seeing the god (darshan), and being seen by him, was an essential part of the ritual.

During the medieval period (12th to mid-18th century), different local traditions explored the various possible relationships of the worshiper to God—based on the analogy of human sentimentsbetween the worshipper and the deity. They were considered analogous to human relationships based on the sentiments involved, such as that those felt by a servant toward his master, a friend toward a friend, a parent toward a child, a child toward a parent, and a woman toward her beloved—were explored in separate schoolsbeloved. In South India, passionate poems to Shiva were composed in Tamil and other Dravidian languages, such as Kannada and Malayalam. In Bengal the 15th–16th-century mystic Caitanya (1485–1533) stressed the passionate yearning of a woman for her beloved, while his contemporary Vallabha (1479–1531) delighted in the exploits of Krishna as both the divine child , as well as Krishna as and the divine lover. Tulsīdās’ In the 16th century, Tulsidas’s retelling of the Rāma Rama legend in the RāmcaritmānasRamcaritmanas (“Sacred Lake of the Acts of Rama”) focused on the sentiment of friendship and loyalty. The synthesis in the medieval period of Poet-saints such as Kabir (1440–1518) fused bhaktiideas with Ṣūfī Sufi (mystical) elements from Islām can be discovered in the writings of poet-saints such as Kabīr, devotees of a God whom they were unwilling and unable to delimit by sectarian descriptionIslam.